Independent senator Fatima Payman has launched a furious attack on fellow senator Pauline Hanson by accusing the One Nation leader of racism, bringing the Senate to a halt.

Hanson was seeking to table documents in the Senate this morning when Payman and the Greens moved to stop her, igniting an acrimonious debate and forcing a vote that led Labor and the Coalition to side with Hanson to try and stop the crossbench dispute.

“You’re not just vindictive, mean, nasty. You bring disgrace to the human race,” Payman told Hanson in the Senate.

“I kept on giving you the benefit of the doubt, Senator Hanson, despite your repetitive attempts to be racist to anyone who does not look like you.”

Victorian independent senator Lidia Thorpe backed Payman and called Hanson a “convicted racist” in an extraordinary moment of direct confrontation between crossbench senators.

Hanson requested for Payman to be asked to withdraw her remarks because it is in breach of the standing orders of the Senate for those in the chamber to call each other racist.

“I want these comments about calling me a racist withdrawn,” Hanson said, without responding further to Payman’s comments. The argument triggered a vote on whether to allow Hanson to table the documents, forcing the major parties to decide where they stood on the crossbench dispute.

Labor, the Coalition and independent senator Jacqui Lambie voted to allow Hanson to table the documents. The Greens and Thorpe sided with Payman.